


Jonquil AU

by JaysAndRavens



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:48:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27121348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaysAndRavens/pseuds/JaysAndRavens
Summary: - AU in which MC (reader) kills Rika out of desperation during her time at Mint eye. Slow updates and possible discontinuation. x -
Kudos: 2





	1. Chapter 1

V... Jihyun... I'm so sorry...

The Savoir turns to me as I slip my phone back into my pocket, my blood running ice cold and my heartbeat thrumming loud in my ears. Savoir's eyes were distracted for a few moments as she spoke to one of the guards in the hall outside, but he has been sent away now, and we are alone.

We're in the throne room again like before, but this time, there aren't even any Believers lingering around us. It's just the two of us. One monster, one human being. 

"What did you do with him?" My words come out very quiet, and the Savoir either doesn't hear, or does, and simply doesn't care. Instead, she takes a seat on the throne, regarding it with fleeting disgust.

Her gaze then travels to me, and her lips curve into some sad kind of smile.  
"You look... Complicated." She says. "I have to admit, I too am feeling... Rather unlike myself. Perhaps it's because he showed up." She spits the words as though they're the most vile thing she's tasted. "I was so at peace before he arrived."

Your peace is derived from other people's suffering, I think to myself, my eyebrows furrowing. Words cannot describe my anger, my pain, my confusion. This is such a mess. A sad, sad mess that I shouldn't never have fallen into. But... If I hadn't... What would have happened to V?

I don't know. I will never know. This... situation, for lack of a better word, has engulfed me so completely that I can hardly remember what life was like with out the ever present torment of this building, these people. This sick thing before me, how can they claim to have known peace? All they've done is filled me to the brim with agony, and they enjoyed every last second of it.

"I'll ask again. What have you, and what will you, do to him?" My voice is angry. I don't care to hide that fact.

"Don't ask questions concerning that creature." Savoir chides. "Just know I'll give him what he always wanted." She sneers.

My rage is immeasurable. My emotions have become a swirling cesspit from which there is no escape. Call me dramatic, but I can never truly impart you the chaos and rage I feel at my situation. It's something you'll never be able to grasp unless you're in the thick of it, which I very much am.

"I presume you know of our history, don't you?" Savoir's words break my from my thoughts roughly. I tilt my head up.   
"A little."

"Yes, the RFA must have told you all about us. We used to be lovers."

That fact makes me sicker than most others. How could V, someone I believed was a good hearted person, fall in love with a thing like this? The notion of it makes me want to scream. I squeezed my eyes shut to stop tears from escaping. My emotions really need to settle down...

"V once said... That he would be my sun. That his love would be pure and everlasting. And, I suppose he was right. He was my sun. He was kind, and gentle, and let me do anything I wanted to do. He said that kind of love would solve everything. But... He was wrong." Savoir gave a heavy sigh. "You know by now that brighter light results in darker shadows. Because of his unwavering light, the darkness inside me grew and tried to break out of me, seeking desperately for some place where it would not perish. That desperation I felt... Is what made me realise. Darkness is by far much better than light."

I almost laugh at the irony of it all.   
"You asked him to be your sun and then resented him for it? He gave you everything, everything you didn't deserve," I spat, "and you threw it all away because you like darkness better? You're sick. You sit here, and you torture innocent people, lost people, hurt people, people who still have a chance at a better life, and you drive them deeper into the darkness, because you believe it can heal them." My mind finds Ray, another lost soul who's heart hides redemption deep within. He has done heinous things, yes, but he himself is not the problem. He is not the reason the darkness has wrapped itself around him so tightly. This bitch, this disgusting monster, she is the reason.

"Silly girl. Darkness is better than light, I've already told you why. In the light, everything seems so beautiful, so everything is taken for granted. But at night, the true beauty of things able to shine even without light are revealed. You can see and appreciate things for what they are. That is the true beauty of darkness."

Savoir stood up and gazed out the window for a moment. "I understand fear and darkness better than anyone." Yeah right, I thought. Try being blindfolded and trapped in a room for the better part of a week. "I too know what it feels like to wake up and wish you were dead. But love like the sun cannot fix that. Love like the sun is weak, futile. At first, it may seem warm enough, but with time it will only scorch you and purge you of the great darkness within you. V... He doesn't understand that. He's determined to sacrifice himself in order to prove his noble love, bright like the sun." Savoir gave a dull laugh, pacing up to me.

"You want to know what I'll do to him? Well, I could leave him at peace in just one day, but that would be too quick. No, I'm going to give him what he deserves, slowly, painfully. I'm going to show him exactly what it feels like to be scorched by a love that destroys you."

My emotions... Dissapeared. It was so strange. It was as though they organized themselves amidst the chaos into a uniform arrangement, making everything - for the first time in days - crystal clear. 

This void in the place where my raging torrent of emotions should have been blinded me to all senses, bar from the incessant thumping of my heartbeat in my ears, quick and constant. A tempo to follow. 

I drew out my knife, the one I kept for emergencies, the one they hadn't found. I never intended to use it, in fact I'd forgotten it was there until now. There were too many security guards, to many witnesses. Besides, killing someone here only meant being locked up again, and possibly treated even worse, if that was possible. But in that moment, that singular, clear as day moment, I knew what I had to do. 

Savoir fell to the floor. Savoir was dead. Her throat was a river whose banks' had burst with blood, her blonde hair little tufts of grass upon the banks, being slowly engulfed by the steady flood of crimson. I just... Stared at her, knife in hand. I did it. I freed myself. I freed V. Or, no, perhaps he would never be free, but that's his own fault. His head will remain his sentry, guarding the cage he calls his heart. But that is all out of my control now. That is all beyond my concern. Now, I must run. Anywhere, it doesn't matter where, because they're coming.


	2. Chapter 2

The wind screams in my ears as I run, oblivious to everything still. Again, a single thought manages to take authority over my head, and it drives me mercilessly onwards. This thought: escape. Escape anywhere. They're coming.

And they are. I know they are. The hammering of their footsteps is impossible to ignore, intent on my goal as I might be. It isn't long before I leave the garden, coming face to face with a fork in the road. Left. No reason why.

To the left is a copse of trees. I run through them, not caring much when the undergrowth reaches up to ensnare my legs. I'm up in a split second, my adrenaline reigning supreme and blocking out trivial things like pain and exhaustion. 

The treeline comes to an end abruptly. I think I see fields beyond, fields filled with Jonquil, and something like relief floods my heart. I needn't outrun them forever.

But my feet grind to a halt as I just about save myself from pitching over the side of a cliff. The sheer rockface slopes down jaggedly to the meadow I thought was right in front of me. A gargantuan plummet seperates me from salvation and safety. To my fear-fueled mind, it is a small price to pay.

I leap over the edge of the cliff, my feet finding the rough rock as I slide down, attempting rather futiley to keep my balance. It isn't long before my arms and legs are bleeding heavily, scathed on the way down. I can almost see the bottom though, and that's enough to keep me from losing my balance all together.

When I finally arrive at the bottom of the cliff, soft green grass awaits me. It greets me softly, it's plush abundance embracing me like you would an old friend. The little sprigs of jonquil smile up at me, mimicking the late afternoon sun. I don't care what Rika says... The sunlight is beautiful.

Rika... Mint eye... They're after me still, aren't they? I don't have to turn around to know my fears are founded. I can hear them sliding down the rock to meet me, their grunts a sign that they are not as ignorant to pain as I have become. Before I know it, their arms have wrapped around me, and they are pulling me up, dragging me away from the field of Jonquil. I don't have the emotional capacity left to scream or cry in agony as I depart from my dear friends. I am so drained, and my thoughts are still so trained on one thing, that I cannot truly express my emotions then and there. However, as they drag me away towards another copse of trees, I am painfully aware of how much this will all sting tomorrow, when I have time to make sense of these absurd series of events. Not only the cuts on my body, but the cuts carved deep into my heart, or what's left of it, as well.

As they drag me up a slightly less steep slope, I catch a glimpse of the window to the throne room back at the main building. Just a few hours ago, the Savoir was alive. Just a few hours ago, a monster and human being entered that room. And just a few hours later, the Savoir was dead. And just a few hours later, a human being and a monster were in that room still, but not the same pair that had entered. 

I feel my eyes closing as I'm dragged back through the first copse of trees. My mind goes totally blank, all thoughts abandoning ship and they realise there's nothing left to fight for, nothing left to fixate on in a last- ditch attempt to save me. It's sad, really. All of it is sad. But what's by far saddest of all, still, is the fact I had to leave behind me that beautiful field of Jonquil.


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing I notice upon coming to is how cold it is down here. I've not actually been down here before, though I've disobeyed Savoir countless times, but I've heard of it often enough.

The cellar. A very small room underneath the throne room of Magenta. Ray often talked about his time down here, and his time treating other Believers who were subject to its dark, dingy confinements. The way he spoke about it was not pleasant, which was odd concidering he seemed to hold every aspect of Mint Eye in such high regard. I had dreaded to think back then what the cellar was like if it could cause even the most devout believer to behave so fearfully.

I guess now's my chance to find out. With great effort, I lift my weighted head. Just what was clogging up the contents of my mind? Just what was weighing me down? Only when I sit up and open my eyes, gazing down at myself, do I remember. The blood on my sleeves served as my reminder. I killed her. I killed Rika, the Savoir... It was me...

"Huh?" I hear a voice that is distinctly not my own. It is deep and rasping, like stone scraping stone. I nearly jump out of my skin as I whip my head around to the cell next to me. There's a shadowy mass in one corner of the cell, hunched up in a way that looks anything but comfortable. I reach forward tentatively, peering into the darkness.

"Is someone there?" My voice is so, so quite. So meek. Why? Only I few hours ago, I was slashing someone's throat and leaping off cliffs, and now I can't even summon the nerve to greet a stranger?

"M...C?" It's a voice I feel like I should recognize. But I don't, not until the figure shifts into the light to get a better look at me. Then, there's no mistaking the blue hair I know only from photographs. The confusion piles on as the pieces finally click into place, making my head feel even heavier than before.

"V? What are you... Doing here?" I ask. He sucks in a breath as he moves again. Is he injured? The darkness is still too thick to tell.

"I came here... To rescue you." There's definitely pain in his voice, but whether it's psychical or emotional, I can't tell. Knowing V's history with Rika, it's probably both.

"Rescue me?" I echo, my hazy mind rushing to compute those words. He came all the way here to save me from her? On his own!? But... Why is he down here? What did he do?

"You failed, didn't you?" The words come out so much harsher than I mean them. V nods solemnly.   
"Yes... I'm sorry." 

There's a moment of silence.

"Don't... worry about it..." I finally say. "I did a fine job of saving myself." 

I can feel his stare trying to pry answers out of my groggy mind, but I don't let it. I know he's dying to ask me how I wound up here if I claim to have saved myself, but I don't have the heart to tell him that yet.

Luckily, there's no time for V to press for the answers he so clearly wants as footsteps echo down the stairs. For a moment, I expect to see Rika round the corner, back from the dead if only to spite me, but it's another face I see moments later, though not one I recognize any less.

"Ray!" I gasp.   
"MC..." He mutters, smiling sadly. 

He regards V for a moment with a abhorrent look before approaching me. He sighs as he kneels down in front of my cell, his eyes on the cold stone floor.

"Show me your sleeves, MC." He mumbles. I scoot back a little to hide my arms in the umbre, trying for a moment to beg for his forgiveness. What an odd thing, to beg this man for forgiveness...

"P-please, Ray, I didn't mean to do it. She-she was threatening me and-and she was going to hurt me and you said it y-yourself that, that you didn't want me to be harmed and that--"

"Your sleeves." 

I don't know what came over me as I held my arms out to him. Guilt? Fear? Sorrow? If I were admitting it to anyone besides Ray, I probably wouldn't have felt any of those things. But to take away this boy's only reason for life, his only hope of salvation... Well, let's just say that was the closest I'd get to regretting what I did that day.

"You... No... You didn't... You couldn't have...." Ray mumbled. "You... You said, she said, Savoir said you weren't like us! She said you were good, innocent! That's right, that's right, you are innocent. You've been framed... Someone else..." His gaze snaps to V, and he makes to get up.

"Somebody else--"

"No! Ray... I did it. I...." If I said it now, V would surely hear me... But if I didn't, who knows what Ray might do to him under the pretence that he was the killer? I swallow my fear.

"I killed Rika." 

I almost vomit. I'm not sure why. It's alot to handle, realising you killed someone mere hours ago. Like I said, I never really regretted it, but it wasn't like I was proud of it either. 

Ray's intense gaze bores a hole right through me as he turns back to me. So many emotions flicker there, all at war with one another in those cerulean depths. Confusion takes a beating from anger, betrayal stabbing hurt in the back when it's not looking. Grief and denial watch the brawl, before one of them falls dead at the other's feet.

"Is.. is that true?"

"No." This time, both Ray and I glare at V. How could be be standing up for me in a time like this? I just admitted to killing his past lover, and he's going to try and take the blame himself? I growl softly under my breath. For once in your life V, don't let everyone place the blame on you.

"It was me. I.. I made her do it. I contacted her through the messenger, convinced her it was the only way.

I told her to kill Rika so it would be easier for me to save her. She didn't want to do it." He hangs his head in shame to make sure the lie sells. I see Ray's mind flash between belief and suspicion before finally settling on the former. He nods, a grimace coming over his face and twisting it into something ugly.

"Then you're the one who'll have to pay. I'll make you pay for killing my saviour!" He all but screeches as he strides over to V's cell. I reach my arm out through the bars weakly, trying to stop him, but it's no use. He is broken inside, a shattered, hollow shell of a boy made to wait. All that waiting tormented his mind until the smallest hint of doubt could penetrate it's entire being like a knife through butter.

I watch him open V's cell, pushing V back into the gloom from which he first emerged. The screams start shortly after, screams of grief and agony from both parties. Realising there's nothing I can do, I sink back down onto the floor, my skull against the stone. And, though it hurts, I let the screams go on, echoing into the darkness until I fall into an uneasy sleep. I try and push the guilt from my mind to little avail. Still, I realised long ago that I cannot save Ray. After all, there is almost nothing left to save.


	4. Chapter 4

It feels like an eternity has passed while I slept. Each day and night passes at laggard speeds, dragging on as though to taunt me. When morning finally does come, it's not like I can tell. There are no windows in the cellar to speak of, so only the very faint, almost melancholic birdsong serves as any indication of the sun's long awaited arrival.

V is already awake. It's no surprise. I wouldn't be able to sleep either if I'd be beaten within an inch of my life that same night. The fear would keep me up, or the anger, or the pain, or maybe all three would take shifts until daybreak, swapping over in an all too predictable pattern that I slowly come to despise. 

I hear the soft shuffling of clothes nearby and look up to see V lying down in the middle of his cell. Blood has dried around a split in his lip, and one of his eyes is swollen shut. Guilt rushes over me through newly opened floodgates, and as he continues to stir, I catch glimpses of further wounds beneath his black robes. 

Ray really did a number on him, it seems. I sigh, and try to push my emotions back again, but the old charade is getting tiring, and I eventually am forced to settle for the slow, familiar throb of despair echoing through my bones in time with my heavy heart. V manages to haul himself up, and takes a few deep, shaky breaths before looking at me. In the moment before I can look away, I see so much in those mint orbs; swarming emotions, none of which I know any name for. My eyes settle on a particularly interesting stone slab and stay there until V speaks.

"Sleep alright?" It's his attempt at a joke, I can tell, but jokes are for people with laughter still inside them. All that's inside me now is a resounding echo which whispers a constant reminder of what I have done. Unable to vocalise that, though, I shrug.

V comes closer to the bars that divide our cells. I shuffle away. I hear him huff out a breath, almost amused at our silent game of cat and mouse. I cannot share his light-heartedness. Not right now. Maybe not ever again.

Again it seems that V has read my mind. When he next speaks, his voice is light and curious, as though he was asking me what my favourite book was, or why I'd chosen that shade of lipstick that day. However, the words that come next are laden with remorse and betrayal, regardless of how he speaks them.

"Why... Did you do it?" It feels like my body is being crushed under a hot, black sea. I feel tears swell behind my eyes but don't let them fall just yet. I can't go making a sob story out of myself.

"I couldn't..." I pause for a moment. How to make this sound reasonable without throwing myself a pity party... Well, I suppose there was no way to make this sound reasonable. It wasn't. It was no more reasonable than what Rika had done, what Ray had done. There was no logic in my anger, my blind refusal. None at all. 

"I was overwhelmed. I... Thought that... If I finally took action, then... Everything would stop." I ignore the pitiful shake in my voice, as - I hope - does V. "I thought that if I got rid of her," I wince inwardly. Wrong choice of words considering this is her fiancé. "I thought that... If she was... Out of the equation, everything would calm down, quieten up. But I realise now this isn't a small fire I can just put out. It's raging forest-wide, and hundreds of people are trapped by the flames. What I did, thinking I could extinguish it, probably only made it worse." 

I don't say sorry. I never did say sorry for what I'd done. I think, because, I wasn't sorry. Not really. If anything, I was more sorry that I'd been the one to kill her, and everything that had happened had happened, than I was that she had been killed at all. I'm not trying to say what I did was martyrdom, not by any means, but aside from that instance with Ray, I have never felt bad that Rika was dead. Only ever that I was the one who killed her. Even when V dropped off the face of the earth, even when Yoosung fell into something he couldn't escape, I never mourned her. I mourned what I lost because of her. I mourned what she had jeopardised with her life and subsequently destroyed with her death. Maybe it's my lingering rage - my trauma, you could call it - but I will never mourn Rika. Not for one second.

"It's alright." Is the first of the lies V tells regarding this incident. I can see it in the way his shoulders sink, the way his eyes suddenly won't fix on me, the way his hands find his hair and run through them time and again. He's crushed. He feels hopeless again. I feel bad, though there's only so much pain you can pile on a person until it all becomes meaningless and indistinguishable. I resolve only to sigh. He says "It's my fault. I should never have let this happen to you, MC, I'm so sorry. I'll take full responsibility once we get out of here--"

Some lingering anger, or perhaps it's exhaustion, comes bubbling back up.  
"Stop it! God, just stop trying to carry everything by yourself! I killed a woman, Jihyun, you do not have to bear the weight of that!" I'm about to say more, but am interrupted by the sound of footsteps. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. My first thought was that Ray is back to give V a second round of torment, and I think that is just the case for a few moments when a figure appears at the foot of the steps. They look just like Ray, after all, but their hair is red, and their clothes a far cry from the uniform robes of the mint eye.

"V! MC!" The man rushes over to us, his voice a half whisper. I blink a few times at him as he moves around our cells, searching for something.  
"Seven?" I ask. He has the gall to offer me a grin.  
"In the flesh!" He says, picking up a set of keys from somewhere amidst the shadows. He brings them over to us and unlocked our cells. He heaves V out when he stumbles to his feet, before holding his hand out to me, too. I blink again, my mind lagging behind for a few seconds. It almost feels... Wrong, to be out of this cage. Like I deserve to be here for what I'd done. But I know that if I don't leave, neither will V, and Seven might stick around too, knowing him. Persistent as a cockroach, as he always says.

So, for what wouldn't be the last time, I save myself just to avoid dooming others. Sometimes your own freedom becomes worthless to you, but you're not so blind as to think that it isn't still worth something to others, and they'd give anything to protect it if you don't. So, I stand and take Seven's hand, not ignoring the way his eyes travelled over my bloodstained sleeves as I do so. I wonder briefly if he'll ask questions, but - upon remembering his line of work - resolve that that it's unlikely.

Together, the three of us follow a path Seven assures us is out of the view of security cameras. However, the amount of believers lurking around every corner gives that fact little weight in terms of quelling my anxiety. I don't really want another person dragged into this mess, but Seven is capable, and I hardly have the energy to worry. Besides, we make it to the outside surprisingly quickly, and I feel almost a little better as Seven shows me to a car parked not to far from the road which leads to Magenta.

However, if current events haven't been enough to indicate that good feelings often turn to bad feelings quick, and bad feelings often turn to awful feelings quicker, then you've not been paying close enough attention. As seven opens the door for me, a voice calls out from behind us. I spin around, but Seven pushes me into the car, and I land splayed across the passenger seats. He then slamms the door shut on me and turns around to tell me something through the glass. I barely catch his words - "lock the doors" - before he turns around again as more shouts sound.

I do as he asks, and it only occurs to me afterwards to search for V. He's the opposite side of the car to where seven is standing, sat down to hide himself from whoever is about to turn the corner. I take his lead and get onto the floor of the car, peering through he passenger window to watch what's going on.

Ray comes barreling round the corner, his clothes disheveled, clasping a gun. I resist the urge to squeeze my eyes shut and curl up in a ball on the floor of the car. Seven stumbles back a little, and I can see his hands fumble for the car door handle behind him. They can't find it in time, however, and Ray advances on him, yelling all the while.

It's hard to make out what they're saying through the car window and my own fear, but I can hear the words "lie" and "betrayal" being thrown around all too frequently. I think I once heard Seven say "Don't turn into mom.", but, not knowing what that could possibly mean, I shrug it off.

Just when it seems their row will never end, I catch movement out of the corner of my eye, and hear a new voice enter the conversation. I almost shoot bolt upright and give myself away when V runs around to the other side of the car and approaches Ray, his hands raised as though trying to sooth a raging animal. I suppose that isn't too far from the reality. However, every inch closer he gets, Ray becomes more agitated, and one wrong step from V is all it takes to set the gun smoking and my ears ringing.

I don't think it actually goes silent, but through my shock I can't hear a thing. Seven starts banging on the car door, and in my dazed state it takes me a few seconds to remember they are locked. I unlock them, and Seven hauls the passenger door open, throwing V inside. He slams the door and throws himself into the driver's seat, hitting the gas so hard I heard his foot slam against the floor. I keep my head down as we speed away, afraid Ray will shoot at us again, but once we get on to the road, my mind becomes concerned with other things.

I adjust V so he is laying across my lap; from this position I can get a good view of his gunshot wound. It doesn't look serious, just a glancing blow to the side of his arm, but it's the last thing V needs after all Ray has done to him in the cellar. It's only then that I'm made aware of the tears streaming down my face, most likely from shock, or perhaps just from the emotions piling higher and higher seemingly without end. 

"Will he be okay?" I ask Seven, who is watching the road with an expression quite unbefitting of the loveable troublemaker. That look speaks of things he had seen but never spoken of, pain he had felt but never moved on from. I'm beginning to understand that look; I feel like I'll find it crossing my face quite a bit in days to come.  
"I'll take him to the nearby hospital to make sure the wound's not serious. If it's not, we'll head to the hideout."  
"Hideout?"  
"It's a little place I know, somewhere hard to track. We'll be safe there while you two heal." 

I'm not really the one who needs to heal, what have I suffered? V's suffered most, both physically and emotionally. I have myself to blame for whatever pain I feel now, but he had had no part in this. I find my hands running through his hair subconsciously, an action I have always felt compelled to do while speaking with him, but I pull them away. I don't have the right to do something like that. I don't have the right to show him affection when all I've brought him is trouble and pain. It would be better to seclude myself entirely. That thought was the seed for a mistake that would lead only to more heartbreak, one that would begin it's growing on our last day at the cabin. But first, we had to get there.


End file.
